Tian can di que The Crippled Master
by Olaf Erikson
Summary: In an accident that takes his arms, Harry must learn to cope without them as he learns that he is a wizard. Very AU. Rated for freedom of writing style. Ships to come later. NON slash.
1. Chapter 1

Synopsis:

In an accident that takes his arms, Harry must learn to cope without them as he learns that he is a wizard. Very AU. Rated for freedom of writing style. Ships to come later. NON slash.

Disclaimer: This is the only disclaimer that you are ever to see. I AM NOT J.K. ROWLING!!!!

Prologue:

A 7 year old boy, one Harry Potter, lay in a coma in the trauma ward of London's Children's Hospital. He had been there ever since the accident. The accident that had taken his uncle and cousin.

It had been a rare show of kindness, however forced, that Harry had even been with them in London. The teachers in Harry's primary school had noticed that the smallish boy had been squinting rather hard at the board in the front of the room. A few phone calls, not to mention raving from his uncle and aunt about how expensive his up-keep was, and Harry was in the car with his uncle Vernon and cousin Dudley.

A lorry driver that had had one too many had been hurrying to finish his deliveries when he had blacked out while driving. Uncle Vernon had been admonishing Harry for being weak and abnormal and Dudley had turned in his seat in the front to sneer at him. Then it had happened.

The two vehicles had struck each other so violently that Vernon and Dudley had been squashed flat by the impact. Unfortunately, Harry Potter had not been wearing his seatbelt and had rocketed forward through the front window of both vehicles. The only thing that had saved his life right there was that a rather tall black man had enough sense and medical training to put tourniquets on what remained of the skinny boy's arms.

Kingsley Shacklebolt only recently completed the optional medical aid course at the Auror Academy. He had been an Auror for several years already, but was always looking for something new to learn. There had been a horrendous crash as he had been walking along his way to the Leaky Cauldron. Rushing up to the scene, he had checked the lorry driver and found him barely alive. Upon seeing the mangled body of a young boy, he immediately tore off his sleeves and tied each one around the bleeding stumps. With death by blood loss temporarily averted, he gently removed the boy from the twisted wreckage.


	2. Chapter 2

Muffled voices were what Harry heard as he struggled to wake up.

"….is he going to live… this?"

"Yes. …hard times are ahead…"

"… can't take care of him. I need to bury…."

"We understand, Mrs. Dursley."

There was a sound of somebody walking off.

The light from the near by window was streaming in and landing on Harry's face. Groaning, he attempted to cover his eyes with an arm. One of the voices that Harry had heard turned to him as they had apparently noticed his awakening.

"Hello there young Harry. How are we feeling today?"

"Sore…. my arms really hurt."

"Harry, do you believe that knowing the truth is better than a comforting lie?"

"Yes…."

"There is no easy way to say this… the reason your arms hurt…. Is that you no longer have them."

Silence reigned in the room.

"What do you mean they're gone!? They hurt!! I can feel them…"

"It is called 'phantom pain' Harry. Your body has always had them until recently, so it believes that it can command them to function. Your brain is trying to make sense of the confusion; it no longer gets any sensory input from your hands and arms. That is why there is pain. Your brain is sending out a command to feel something, anything at all… and when it can't, the signal comes back empty."

"What happened to uncle Vernon and Dudley? Are they here with me?"

"… No. Harry, they did not survive."

"No…. aunt Petunia…."

"Your aunt has made all the excuses in the world to not visit you. She claims that you are a troublesome child who is only a troublemaker."

"That is not true! I do the chores they give me, eat the food they give me…."

The doctor gave Harry a mildly sour look.

"Harry, please be honest with me. You are too small for your age and far too thin. This is usually caused by a lack of food and poor living conditions. You are not at fault for anything that happened there at your home."

Harry was stunned. All of his rather young life, he had been admonished, verbally abused, ordered about as though he were a slave, not to mention virtually starved. He had never had any type of affection or even love from anybody in his family. So while it was nothing new or to be proud of, it did throw him for a loop to have it all out in the open.

Slowly and with great care, the doctor pulled Harry's life story from the boy's own lips. Taking several breaks to comfort the child when he cried or raged at his treatment at home helped immensely.

"Now what doctor?"

"Your aunt has given custody of you over to the hospital. She has stated rather plainly that she no longer wants you around."

"What does this mean? Where will I live? Can I get my things from Privet Drive?"

"Once you have physically healed from your injuries, you will be moved to an area of the hospital that is set up like a foster home. Your possessions from your house will brought here for you. You will go to school as you would normally. The only thing that will be different is how you will take care of yourself."

"How will I do that?! I have no hands!"

"So? In time, your feet will become your hands. Hold onto that thought for a moment will you Harry?"

"Ok."

Getting up from the bedside, the kind doctor went to the phone on the wall near the door. Pressing a few buttons, he paged for somebody.

"Dr. Johnson? It's Carter. Yes Harry is awake and he knows what is going on. …. Could you have a few of our guests come by for a few minutes?... Thank you."

Returning to Harry's side, Dr. Carter explained.

"The people coming in are in situations like yours Harry. Some have lost legs, others their arms. All of then have been receiving instruction on how to live without their limbs."

A few moments later, there was a knocking upon Harry's door. It opened to reveal three people. One was a man in a wheelchair, who had apparently lost his legs. Another was a tall blonde woman who had no arms. The third person was another doctor, and by the looks of him, he seemed to be from India.

The new doctor stepped forward and introduced himself.

"Hello Harry. I am Dr. Ramachandran. These are my friends James and Colleen."

"Nice to meet you."

James rolled his wheelchair closer to Harry's side and parked it.

"Harry, I lost my legs when my car was torn apart in an auto accident. Like you, I despaired at finding a way to live without them. I left my job to come here and become a teacher for those who lose parts of their body."

Harry stared at the spot where James' knees should have been. Seeing where Harry's eyes were looking, James reached down and rolled up his pants leg far enough for Harry to see the scars.

After staring for many moments, James rolled his pants back to their former position.

"I used to have phantom pains like you Harry. Dr. Ramachandran here taught me some mental exercises to do when the pain got bad. He will be doing the same for you."

Colleen had been waiting for her turn.

"I lost my arms when I grabbed an un-shielded power cable by mistake. It actually did kill me for a few minutes since it had stopped my heart, but I came back. Unfortunately, all that electricity going through my body burned my arms so badly that they had to be removed."

Harry was stunned at their stories.

"How do you dress yourself? Brush your teeth…. And other things like that?"

"Well, since I am like you and without the use of hands and arms, I will be teaching you how to do all of that and more. I prefer pants or skirts that will slide on since even I am not flexible enough to try pulling them up."

A/N: Dr. Ramachandran is a real doctor that specializes in treating and studying various odd mental disorders. Including but certainly not limited to phantom pain, visual perceptive differences between normal and abnormal brains… things like that. Go ahead and google him…. Not sure if I spelled his name right.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Very good Harry. Learning to use your feet as your hands is at the least a bit disconcerting, if not weird."

"Thanks Colleen. I don't know what I would have done without you. I have learned so much."

"It means so much to hear that, Harry. I am simply passing on what another taught me. By the way, how are your lessons with Dr. Ramachandran going?"

"He taught me to visualize my hands clenching and un-clenching. That takes care of the phantom pain. When I first started, I had to watch a video of somebody actually doing that very thing to get the proper visual. And it was very hard. It felt like I was making a fist that got tighter and tighter without being able to let go."

"I know the feeling. For me the hard part was more or less organizing my mind to deal with things as they came up."

"Yeah."

She stood up from her chair. "Time to go to your savate classes. Race you?"

Harry simply smiled. "You're on!"

Being smaller and very much faster had definite advantages as Harry ducked, bobbed and wove his way through the hospital corridors to the gym. Panting slightly, he let loose a strong kick to the padded door. As it swung open, Harry rolled in a tumble and landed on his feet in front of his teacher.

"Colleen!!! How did you get here ahead of me?"

"Did I not tell you last week that taking the stairs at the end of your floor was not the way to go if you wanted to win?"

"You did…"

"What have you learned from it?"

"At the very least that I should listen to advice. What I do after that is purely my choice."

"Very good. It is our choices that make us who we become."

What followed was a long session of striking the human shaped dummy target. For Harry, the fun was in the sparring that followed.

"Even better than last Monday when you caught me with that revers to my back."

Harry blushed at the praise. Life in the hospital was certainly different than it had been with the Dursley's.

Here, he was encouraged and praised for his accomplishments. Traditional punishment for misbehaving was typically one of the doctors finding a more difficult chore for him to complete. In the beginning, it was simply to get himself dressed. As time wore on, Harry had to do the things that any child would do. Things like make his bed with hospital corners, cleaning his room, and the most mind numbing of all was being the hospital gofer.

In the hospital, he was even allowed to have friends over from school. He even celebrated the first birthday he could remember having with his friends. That had eventually dissolved into a food fight with the cake being the primary weapon of choice. The door to Harry's room had opened just as Jimmy Horner had ducked a shot of icing from Harry.

SPLAT!

Colleen stood there as she wiped the icing from her face with her shoulder.

"HARRY POTTER!!!"

Meekly, Harry stood, ready to do what ever was asked of him.

"Please bring me a napkin and then get me a slice of cake if there is any left."

Harry was grateful that he had been doing his exercise and stretches earlier that day, as it allowed him to take the napkin and wipe her face clean with little trouble.

He brought over the cake she had asked for and waited for the other shoe to drop.

"If you are that accurate with flinging a cake, meet me in the gym tomorrow at 5:30 pm."


End file.
